Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing cannot accept any country acting as the “world’s judge” after the United States captured Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro.
The world’s second-largest economy has provided Venezuela with an economic lifeline since the U.S. and its allies ramped up sanctions in 2017, purchasing roughly $1.6 billion worth of goods in 2024, the most recent full-year data available.
Almost half of China’s purchases were crude oil, customs data shows, while its state-owned oil giants had invested around $4.6 billion in Venezuela by 2018, according to data from the American Enterprise Institute think tank, which tracks Chinese overseas corporate investment.
Yet this is exactly the kind of action they fully supproted when Russia attempted the exactly same thing in 2022. And then several times since. Plus a few other atrocities.
Since Taiwan is “already part” of China, that would just be internal affairs too.
It also cannot accept others acting as judges when it finally invades Taiwan.
MAGAs keep saying that this isn’t about the oil because the oils fields are inoperative, and it will be at least a decade, and billions of dollars before they are getting any oil out of the ground.
Meanwhile, we’ve been hijacking giants tankers full of oil, and China, and other countries, have been buying billions of dollars worth every year.
It seems like there is plenty of oil coming out of Venezuela, and always has been. This is all about oil, and that’s all there is to it. They can deny it, but they are proven virtuoso liars, and we don’t have to believe them.
Aren’t they only saying that so they can annex Taiwan without interference?
so what if they do at this point? who’s to say they are the bad guys if they do it?
Taiwan is America’s property in the same way that Venezuela is America’s property and Greenland is America’s property and Nigeria is America’s property and everything is America’s property.
Imagine if China claimed Hawaii or Key West, and vowed to attack with everything they had if we took back our own land?
Awarding a distant relative of Hawaii’s last king the Star of Lenin while declaring ownership over all the pineapples on the island chain.
Unless it’s China whose the judge, of course. They seem to find no issue judging the Uygurs as needing to die and Taiwan as their property, or the the South China Sea as their waters, or all the fish in the world as theirs to make extinct.
They seem to find no issue judging the Uygurs as needing to die
Are they killing Uyghurs by the millions or teaching them Mandarin?
So much of the hysteria around China seems to stem from domestic campaigns of infrastructure development. The Three Gourges Dam, the rapid expansion of urban infrastructure, development of schools and hospitals in the historically rural corners of the country, expansion of universities, trade with East Africa, the BRI - all described as brutal forms of colonial oppression by a savage and sadistic Far-Left Totalitarian Communist government.
Nobody described Bolsonaro’s Brazil in these terms, as his administration clear cut the Amazon and rapidly displaced tens of thousands of migrants. Nobody described The Phillipines or Indonesia this way, even as Red Tagging was used as an excuse for vigilante executions and toxic dumping sent cancer rates stratospheric. Hell, its hard enough to get Israel described in these terms in any major western publication of record, and they’re outright shooting children in the head before labeling them “Hamas Terrorists”.
Why are liberals so eager to re-characterize literacy programs as a form of holocaust? Why do they seem so gleeful at the prospect of a China-Taiwan hot war? Why do we have a President threatening to invade Venezuela, Nigeria, and Greenland all at once, while his biggest “critics” complain that he’s not bellicose enough?
Fucking wild times.
or supporting Russia judging Ukraine, also totally ok.
different from other imperialists nations, how?
This also gives justification to North Korea. They’ve been arguing for ages that they should be allowed nuclear weapons because otherwise the US would come in and force a regime change, and now Trumpsky has just handed them the evidence.
All that NK artillery was the real deterrent. Before NK developed Nukes, after the cold war the US could have relatively easily crushed them except for the incredible amount of collateral damage they could have done to SK. However, in the post Ukraine/Trump presidency age, securing a stock of nukes or joining a defense coalition that includes at least one member with nukes seems like the wise decision. Heart breaking really.
The US could also have easily crushed the Vietnamese./s
Well… yeah, we could have.
If war was literally as simple as “kill the other person and damn the consequences” the US could have casually wiped out the viet cong at pretty much any point during the war. The political consequences for doing so were the limiting factor - an extreme example, but we could have just nuked north vietnam to glass and been done with it (and obviously that wasn’t a realistic option (despite the number of times some psycho general or the other tried to advocate for it)).
If war was literally as simple as “kill the other person and damn the consequences” the US could have casually wiped out the viet cong at pretty much any point during the war.
They tried that towards the end, sending B-52s to carpet bomb Hanoi. Dozens of planes were shot down, hundreds survived, thousands of civilians were killed. If the US continued, they would have managed to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians, but eventually they’d run out of planes before the Vietnamese ran out of people or willingness to defend themselves.
You all act like we didnt already have dozens of nukes at that ppint and couldnt straight up glass the entire country. It wasnt capability that stopped the US is was political willpower or lack there of.
They escalated, yes - absolutely not denying that. But the point was that they didn’t just nuke the city. Winning was important, but there was a point that the consequences of winning were deemed to outweigh the victory itself.
“we coulda won but we just didn’t feel like it.”
Not a very convincing argument.
That’s an oversimplification to the point that it really doesn’t represent my argument at all, though. But to treat with what you said, I’m not sure how
The US didn’t “feel” like winning the war was so important it justified nuking north vietnam
is a bad representation of the situation? The US didn’t drop sarin on the ho chi minh trail, nor did they nuke Hanoi, mobilize full wartime production, draft the “desirables” etc. Politics are a massive part of any war. “An army marches on it’s stomach” isn’t simply a literal adage about the importance of supplies.
The key difference, for those unfamiliar with Asia or history, is that South Korea is a cohesive modern nation with a competent military and a strong sense of national identity that feel genuine friendship with the US (for now at least). All things that weren’t true about South Vietnam.
South Korea was essentially invented by the US in 1947, it took trillions in investment, and decades of propaganda+imprisoning/killing everyone left of Sygmon Rhee to create the nation of South Korea…
I think you’re giving the US way too much credit here. They helped south korea establish itself with a massive investment, but they didn’t “invent” the country, and its pretty insulting to south koreans that you’re so willing to take away their agency in the matter.
There literally was no South Korea, just Korea before the US drew a line on a map.
if i remember correctly, the north koreans also had a role to play in drawing that map, seeing as how the north korean army was pushed all the way north to china’s border.
They’re not wrong but also the last thing those assholes want is anyone judging their shitty behavior. Ulterior Motives and all.
because you dont want attention when you eventually want to take over taiwan
For anyone that thinks otherwise I guarantee this opens the door for China to begin their assault on Taiwan.
I’m not so sure it does. China is openly arguing against Trumps logic here, and the US just did demonstrate their military is still highly effective. The US seventh fleet hasn’t moved away from Taiwan, and Trump is clearly signalling he intends to keep China down.
I’d argue Xi is not happy Trump decided to actually do something like this, because it increased the risk of his plans with Taiwan as well now that the US is openly hostile and MAGA cheers it on.
China needed him to keep up the whole peace pretense and for MAGA to stay on board with that. Now that that’s gone, Trump has cleared the way for more military intervention.
From China’s perspective (and in theory, Taiwan’s perspective), invading Taiwan isn’t the same, because they both officially recognize One China, they just disagree about who’s in charge.
It would more akin to USA invading Puerto Rico, if the governor of PR asserted that they were in fact the proper leaders of the USA.
and the US just did demonstrate their military is still highly effective
hmmmm sucker punching Venezuela here is not the flex you seem to think it is
the USA loves to bat weaker military powers around but they have been shown to be crushed by peasants in the long run…
In a matter of hours the US kidnapped the president of Venezuela, from his house on an army base, taking zero casualties. I don’t think there’s many militaries around that can beat that. It’s not the same as capturing Putin or Xi, sure, but it’s no trifle either.
you’ve never been to Venezuela, have you?
MAGA is actually currently having a bit of a crisis of confidence. One of the promises Trump made was to stop the empire building and international interference. Now he’s going around causing an international incident every 45 minutes.
He has gone from saying that it was a single strike, to threatening more strikes against Venezuela, to threatening yet other countries in the last 24 hours.
In the USA, this is known as the “old switcheroo”.
Our politicians are infamous for doing the exact opposite of their platform.
For example, Reagan ran on sealing the borders and isolationism, only to declare amnesty for border hoppers and revel in international intervention.
Biden ran on increasing the minimum wage and other working class American concerns. Did he do this? No.
Our major parties aren’t actually concerned with their platforms, that’s performative.
The thing about bootlickers is that they love licking boot. As long as we’re winning and not losing, they’ll obediently fall in line. If things turn to shit, like it did in Iraq & Afghanistan, they’ll pretend they were always against it.
Maga gets hard from a show of strength, regardless of what form that takes. Even if it means cannibalising some of their own.
A random Xitter account crying foul isn’t a sign of widespread crisis of confidence. Only 6% of Republicans don’t approve of the Maduro kidnapping. His approval rating went up a bit since the kidnapping (38% -> 42%).
His base, by and large, support the warmongering.
cult members gotta cult
China claims Taiwan is theirs. Invading their own country to free it doesn’t really need any extra motive (even if there is) like what Trump needed, and is not playing world police.
100% agree, also China’s outrage is in name only. They provided 1.6 Billion in relief in the form of buying oil lol.
this is how things work, and some people seem incapable of understanding that.
You exercise a given power, and it gives others justification to use power in the same way. Laws be damned, the motivation is there.
And now I’m agreeing with China.
Thanks, Trump.
China is an authoritarian dictatorship that tramples human rights and treats its citizens like resources and speed-bumps and treats “free speech” as the joke it actually is.
All that said, they are pulling ahead on the world stage by miles. We don’t see it in the US because again… freedom of speech isn’t real, media is filtered, but if you travel you see whole other angles on the entire planet and just how much we don’t get shown.
For example, you rarely see news about it, but China has launched 3 space stations in the time it took us to make just the documentaries about the ISS and how huuuuge of an accomplishment it was for the world. They are going to be launching probes and setting up smart, realistic goals for exploring the solar system. That’s just not the kind high-tech, ambitious, modern project that we associate with our stereotypical imagery of China that we get fed here, but if you actually walk around in any of their new cities you will feel a distinct, sinking sensation that we’ve already lost.
China is an authoritarian dictatorship that tramples human rights and treats its citizens like resources and speed-bumps and treats “free speech” as the joke it actually is.
if you switched “China” to “The USA” in this sentence, I would have to find details to see if the scale is different but both do exactly the same
Yep. There is no government that actually serves the people, governments serve self-preservation and they tend to do heinous shit to succeed at that. We are not an evolved species but really only because we lack the will to be better broadly.
As individuals we each have vast capacity for learning, caring and understanding the world around us. As a generalized population we are a liquid that flows to the lowest point and erodes everything it touches.
I agree… but my point here is that it does not matter it was China who said “x”, in this instance “x” is right and people are dismissing it because “cHiNA” but the reality is that every country, powerful enough, acts pretty much the same so I am attempting to split the source from the message
Americans still associate China with shit quality merchandise while glossing over that that merchandise is made shit quality because American Importers selected that level of quality and completely ignoring that they make I Phones and other High quality tech.
This is absolutely right and a good point that I think a lot of people really don’t get. China isn’t filled with the cheap shit we get from China, they have a thriving middle-class, they have luxury goods the likes of which westerners haven’t dreamed of. They have quality standards for goods and services probably higher than most places.
It’s just that since we get their cheap dollar-store merch and we read stories about traditional Chinese medicine, we get the picture here that they’re still largely a backwards, “3rd-world” nation of rice farmers and peasants. It would be like judging the entire US on a sampling of people from the mountains of Appalachia.
Related, but I also find it hilarious when people reference China as “communist” in any capacity.
Three what now? Do you mean three modules for one station? Or three consecutive stations, one testing technology for the next? E.g. a short time station, e.g. a crew vehicle? I am only aware of one station, Tiangong. Do I have to do another web search? :(
The current monster they have completed in 2022, Tiangong, was the third in a series of stations, the previous Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2 stations were mostly meant to test technique and technology but were remarkable achievements in their own right. They currently have the largest and most active space program in the world. I didn’t even touch on their lunar program, their heavy satellite capability and their list of recent and upcoming solar-system probes.
- I don’t think monster is an appropriate word for a space station.
- so yeah, Tiangong-1 & -2 were single vehicle modules for technology evaluation. Similar to Skylab in concept (single launch, test docking technologies & crewed missions)
- as impressive as the Chinese space program is, the ISS is substantially bigger. Sadly, the world has not gotten their shit together in time for a follow-up station, and Gateway is pretty much dead-at-conception.
Oh the ISS is definitely bigger than anything ever sent to space, as I would expect from an international project that was built by a coalition of countries in better days, but it doesn’t really compare to China’s long-term goals and plans that have been on schedule. China is absolutely dominating space right now and will be into the future unless the US just suddenly gets it shit together and elects people who care about science and exploration, and even then it will take many years or decades now to undo the damage that trumpism has done to the US’s global leadership in space science.
The ISS is going to be deorbited in 2031, and I am not expecting a bigger, newer project to replace it. At this point I am not expecting to have access to health care broadly in 2031 in the US.
No argument there. China definitely has the better and more advanced space program. The ISS might get extended again if it doesn’t break and once people realize there is nothing comparable ready by 2030/31, but yes, eventually, there will be no international nor western space station in orbit for the foreseeable future.
There’s just the one.
It can only house three people.
Yeah, that is what I thought. Still, I was impressed when they launched it as announced.
He may have meant one space station and some extra moon missions or something? They have been popping off a fair bit.
Honestly, I don’t care what country dominates and wins the space race, i will just be impressed that we don’t kill each other trying.
I would prefer for it to be an international cooperation - but we’re just fucking this up big time :/
Is bombing other countries, killing civilians and installing puppet leaders not a violation of human rights?
Alright. The US acted like crap. Therefore nobody is allowed to criticise China.
Because of the US, we are not allowed to speak about the Uyghur KZs in China.
Because of the US, we are not allowed to criticise China for unlawfully occupying Tibet.
Because of the US, we are not allowed to criticise China for not respecting Taiwans sovereignty.
Do you understand how hollow you sound?
Two things can be true at once
Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others.
Kay, I’m not chinese or american, so, both the us and china do horrendous things. It’s not a shittiness competition
As an American I can say that the US and China are both bad…
It’s like saying a slap on the wrist vs shooting someone with a gun are equally bad.
I think you’re missing a lot of US History in your knowledge base. The US have committed atrocities for centuries. Are you forgetting the genocide of native americans? Slavery? All the meddling in Latin America and southeast Asia? This is just some of the bigger examples.
False equivalency and a fascist talking point
No, and no.
No that’s just freedom, freedoming places that needed to be freedomed. Oohrah.
So what if they do a little authoritarianism? They are attempting to make goddamn fusions reactors, for fucks sake
It’s important to point out balancing factors when discussing the accomplishments of any entity or state.
China is doing amazing things and will likely dominate the coming century, but that doesn’t mean we should look at them like heroes or champions, and we need to hold our leaders accountable for wrongs.
It’s possible they will get better as they take on more of a global role in the absence of the US hegemony that will likely start to crumble over the next several decades. I hope they give their people more rights and become leaders of world stability, but part of why they’re escaping the destabilizing forces that are crushing democratic countries is precisely because they have such an oppressive stranglehold on their own culture. It’s a complex situation.
whoosh
All this time you’ve been agreeing with a terrorist organisation, you just didn’t know it.
What do you think of China‘s Invasion of Korea and Vietnam around the same time?
Invasion of Korea lmao. The north had democratic elections, the south had a sham election that resulted in an administration which put people who’d colluded with the japanese back into power, and the US was literally murdering anyone left of Syngman Rhee as a prelude to taking the rest of the peninsula.
Whatever you think about Korea now, China was absolutely fighting for the liberation of its people.
The sino-vietnamese war was 25 years later, and a much more legitimate criticism of China’s foreign policy.
How about Kuwait?
I assume you mean when Saddam, with the US’s weapons and blessing, invaded Kuwait, then was shocked the US betrayed their old friend?
If so, I have absolutely no idea how its relevant to China.
Worse, a “world judge” that doesn’t accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
“We make the rules, but rules don’t apply to us.”
That sounds an awful lot like Wilhoit’s law, which I find myself referring to quite often lately.
Wilhoit’s law:
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
edit: So the US is the rich conservative of the world stage. Super. I love seeing the news every day and wondering if any more of these maga morons are going to finally have their “are we the baddies?” moment. /s
Even going so far as planning in details how to invade the International Criminal Court, if it ever dared to prosecute one of their soldiers for, say, murdering children in the streets.
It would appear that the US got tired of all the jokes comparing them to the movie Idiocracy, so they decided to make themselves into Team America: World Police instead.
All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.
:(
Found the Cylon.
No toasters in these parts, my fellow biological human.
Swap police with gangsters and i agree.
I mean…that’s why that movie was made to begin with…
Trey Parker and Matt Stone should make the movie free for the week in honor of Team America World Police being back in action.
We agree, so let’s discuss the Chinese police stations in countries that are clearly not China.
Let’s discuss the American military bases in countries that are clearly not America.
At least the host country agreed to those
There’s real things to criticize, why pick something stupid?
Hard power is often leveraged by state actors to coerce agreement / consent. It doesn’t necessarily invalidate consent but it certainly obscures it.
After WW2 Japan and Germany, for example, were not in a position to say no to US bases. I wouldn’t consider that legitimate consent.
Agreement under duress isn’t really agreement
Sweet summer child
Yeah… Maybe ask the good folks of Okinawa whether they have ever agreed to American military bases.
You can’t tolerate the intolerant, Japan lost WWII and had to be demilitarized. It’s one thing to advocate for Remilitarize Japan, it’s another thing entirely to ask their proxy military to leave them defenceless.
Ahahah. The host country agreed to those. That’s priceless…
same way I agree to give up my wallet when getting mugged?
China is the world’s largest economy by every meaningful metric. No serious economist uses GDP as a metric for actual economic production. Can we please at least use GDP (PPP)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
It’s still not a good metric but at least it actually allows a means to compare countries to one another more accurately.
The US economy is 10 major tech corporations doing essentially this with AI right now.
China has 4x the population of the US. It should have 4x the GDP of the US to be truly equivalent.
You might want to let the people that studied econ beyond a lemonade stand just talk next time. You don’t need to type out every thought in your head.
You just gave the ultimate dumb guy response. Congratulations.
We’re discussing Calculus and you just responded with “yeah, well 2 + 2 = 4. I don’t know why those letters are in your math with that weird squiggly line at the start.”.
You clearly have no idea what we’re even discussing in this thread.
No serious economist uses GDP as a metric for actual economic production. Can we please at least use GDP (PPP)?
In terms of flexing on foreign countries on the international stage, though, raw GDP (or at least imports and exports) is pretty important.
The PPP calculation comparing China to the United States may tell us a lot about how much a resident of either country can expect to experience using the local currency domestically, but if we’re talking about influence over a third country, in that third country’s local currency, then I think each respective PPP back home doesn’t matter as much.
If we’re not comparing the ability of a citizen to buy things with the fruit of their labor. What are we comparing?
I get what you’re saying. But it comes down to a fundamental problem with liberal (using the classical sense of the word) economist and what they are “flexing” about.
The “economy” to the average voter is how much the groceries and rent are.
Not even mentioning the “eating shit” problem of GDP. GDP PPP is far more meaningful to quality of life. Though still flawed. The normal person isn’t trying to understand the power of a currency on the world stage. They are using it to buy eggs.
If we’re not comparing the ability of a citizen to buy things with the fruit of their labor. What are we comparing?
In this particular case? I think we’re comparing Chinese and American ability to project economic influence (from trade or aid, to outright bribes or coercion or boycotts or sanctions or everything in between) over Venezuela.
The normal person
But the normal person has nothing to do with governments dealing with other governments on the global stage. And that’s what this story is about, Venezuela being caught between two competing visions of their future in the international order.
If a country wants to build an airport in their capital city using the resources of foreign governments seeking to influence them, the question isn’t about how many eggs the citizens of those countries can buy in their home turf, but about how much concrete and steel and heavy machinery those other countries can provide in the country considering offers.
Do you think America competes at all in its ability to produce heavy machinery, concrete, and steel when compared to China?
We are far beyond the GDP vs. GDP(PPP) that started this. But, you brought it up. The US’s main problem is it’s lack of industrial production. It’s an almost entirely finance based economy. Which is something that causes its GDP to be heavily inflated. The AI companies trading the same billions in a circle with no actual material production happening in the country right now. The US economy is built on financial speculation. China’s is built on industrial production. Something GDP doesn’t account for at all.
That was my entire frustration with using GDP as a metric in the first place. I said “at least use GDP(PPP)” because at least it takes into account the populations purchasing power of goods.
On the world stage, as an economic power, the US is losing to China. It’s why it’s using its military to invade South American countries that trade with China. It has no real way to compete. So it’s falling back on it’s methods of imperialism.
We are far beyond the GDP vs. GDP(PPP) that started this.
No, you started talking about PPP in response to a news story that described the United States and China competing over influence over the Venezuelan economy: Chinese aid and investment in response to United States sanctions. Those are essentially going to be dollar denominated, and PPP doesn’t matter. I’ve been saying from the beginning that you were wrong to bring PPP into the discussion, because this discussion, in this thread, isn’t about domestic consumption in either China or the U.S.
The US’s main problem is it’s lack of industrial production.
Again, when talking about the effects of sanctions and foreign aid and investment, we should be talking about transactions that occur in the currency at issue. If China wants to provide aid to Venezuela in RMB, Venezuela will either need to spend that on Chinese producers or exchange for another currency to spend elsewhere (including Venezuelan Bolivars being spent domestically). If there’s going to be a currency exchange, then PPP of the aid providing nation doesn’t matter. A million USD from China is worth the exact same amount as a million USD from the U.S.
On the world stage, as an economic power, the US is losing to China.
I think if we’re talking about on the world stage, as an economic power, the interconnected West is best understood as a power bloc. U.S. inconsistency and unpredictability on things like Russian sanctions actually show the limits of U.S. unilateral power while still showing the power of the broader Western order. Yes, China and Russia want to provide the world with an alternative multipolar order, and fragmentation of the Western powers may open up opportunities for that vision, but that competition is playing out along alliances, not isolated nations. In any event, PPP doesn’t have anything to do with that particular competition.
Okay but what metric should we use for the average American median voter who just wants to see China enter a wrestling ring with pyrotechnics and then rock and roll music plays and we see the US hit them with a steel chair.
Even that might be too nuanced and complex for the average American voter.
Naw, OpenAi pays oracle to agree to eat the crap Oracle pays nvidia to agree to eat the crap Nvidia pays OpenAi to agree to eat the crap
The consumers eat the crap as they reduce the memory and video cards available to the public.
The anus calling the butthole an asshole situation here.
China is nowhere near a terrorist as America.
Every regime change America has done in another country and installed a puppet, their economic situation never improved under the puppet leader.
They’re both pretty shit tbh. But also, Tiennamen Square lol
You’re gonna compare one bad thing done by China to hundreds done by America and claim both are equally bad lmao
More of a joke, really. Both countries have committed countless atrocities.
No, count them, by all means.
Oh you’re right, Hitler A is a liiiittle bit worse than Hitler B.
“Little bit worse”, “countless”, “big beautiful bill”, are you an American? If so, it really shows the USA barely maintains a Department of Education. If not, jeez, MAGA hats are everywhere.
Fucking lol, with this sino propaganda.
Stfu cia shill
How exactly am I a CIA shill? This is the kind of shit that makes people not take you seriously at all.
“Everyone must be a shill because they disagree with me!!”
I’m equally critical of both the US hegemony as well as that of China’s.
I’m saying China hasn’t bombed nearly as many countries as America. Yet China is evil and America good.
Take a moment to understand what you’re arguing here. China not bombing an equal number of countries (according to you) as the US does not absolve the PRC of their sins simply because you are comparing them to another imperial power. This is, like, textbook false equivalence.
You still haven’t answered exactly how I’m a CIA shill, btw.
China and America are the two biggest economies and armies of the world. It’s a fair comparison. Soon the world will have to choose between America and China.
It’s not “according to me”. History is proof of America’s terrorism. China hasn’t bombed a single country in over a century.
